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The Peace of Knared concluded January 28 ends a fratricidal 2-year war between Sweden and Denmark. Sweden gives up Finland and allows Danish merchants into Livonia, but a war for spoils has been going on between Swedish forces and those of Great Novgorod (see 1617).
The Romanov dynasty that will rule Russia until 1917 is inaugurated July 22 with the crowning in the Kremlin at Moscow of Mikhail Romanov, 17, a son of the patriarch Philaret and grandnephew of Ivan IV who was found last year in a monastery after the peasant militia liberated Moscow from the Poles. Mikhail's election by the boyars February 22 has ended the "time of the troubles" that has persisted since the death of Boris Godunov in 1605. A Russian force has retaken Novgorod from the Swedes who occupied it in 1611. Sweden's Gustav II Adolf leads an army that fails to take the city of Pskov (see Treaty of Stolbovo, 1617), and Mikhail Romanov will reign, weakly, until 1645 as Czar Mikhail (Michael).
Bethlen Gabor (Gabriel Bethlen von Iktar), 33, overthrows Gabriel Bathóry and becomes prince of Transylvania, ending the cruel Catholic reign of Bathóry, who is murdered at age 24. Bethlen establishes Protestantism in Transylvania and imprisons Bathóry's cousin Elizabeth, who will die in confinement next year.
England's James I has a divorce commission annul the 7-year-old marriage of Robert Devereux, 22, 3rd earl of Essex, to Frances Howard, countess of Suffolk, who has fallen in love with the king's handsome Scottish secretary, Robert Carr. The king arranged the marriage, he has had it dissolved at Somerset's persuasion, and his action embitters Essex. Sir Thomas Overbury has opposed the annulment and dies of poison at London September 13 at age 32, having been murdered by Frances (probably with Carr's help, and possibly with help from naval officer Sir William Monson, who since 1604 has been fighting pirates as Admiral of the Narrow Seas); Carr is made earl of Somerset and treasurer of Scotland, and he and Frances are married in December (see 1615).
Virginia colonists take Pocahontas hostage, bring her to Jamestown, and hold her for ransom (it is not forthcoming; see 1608). She is instructed in the Christian religion, baptized, and christened Rebecca (see 1614).
Londonderry is founded in Ulster as England opens half a million acres to "plantations" of up to 3,000 acres each for Protestant settlers from England and Scotland. Irishmen who were loyal to the crown in the recent rebellion are also eligible for such grants.
Dutch merchants outfit two trading vessels, the Fortune and the Tiger, placing Hendrick Christiaensen in charge of the first and his friend Adriaen Block of the second. They sail for North America early in the year, and 3 months later the merchants send out a third vessel under the command of Cornelis Jacobsen May.
An English factory (trading post) is established at Hirado, and Will Adams attempts to establish trade between Japan and England through Captain John Saris at Bantam (see 1605; 1616).
The English East India Company establishes its first factory in India (see 1608; 1616).
English merchant John Jourdain buys pepper in Sumatra and cloves at Amboina and Ceram in the Spice Islands.
The first Japanese-built Western-style ship leaves October 28 for a 90-day voyage to Acapulco in New Spain. Built with technical advice from a Spaniard, the ship is commanded by the samurai Tsunenaga Hasekura. The 120-ton schooner carries Don Rodrigo de Vivero, Spanish governor of Luzon, who was stranded in Japan by a shipwreck.
"History and Demonstrations concerning Solar Spots and Their Properties" ("Istoria e Dimostrazione intorno alle Macchie Solare e loro Accidenti" by Galileo Galilei claims that he discovered sunspots before Christopher Scheiner [although they were probably discovered before either of them by Thomas Harriot or Johannes Fabricius]; see 1609; 1610 1611; Welser, 1612). He advocates the Copernican system proposed in 1543, and his work receives wide distribution, provoking a dispute with Vatican authorities (see 1616; Foscarini, 1615).
Typhus strikes Württemberg and the Tyrol and appears in Magdeburg.
Plague appears at Regensburg and Leipzig; it spreads eastward through Bohemia and Austria.
The daimyo Date Masarnune, 48, dispatches a Japanese embassy to Spain and the pope.
Poetry: Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea (Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea) and Solitudes (Soledades) by Spanish poet Luis de Góngora y Argote, 52, whose works are circulated in manuscript. He has written them in a baroque, convoluted style that will be called Gongorism (gongorismo) and be imitated by less talented poets.
Painting: The Aurora fresco in Rome's Raspigliosi Palace by Italian painter Guido Reni, 38, who has been influenced by the late Caravaggio; The Holy Family by Luis Tristán, who has been influenced by his fellow El Greco pupil Orazio Borgianni.
Theater: The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn by Francis Beaumont 2/20 at Whitehall, on the marriage of the Prince and Princess Palatine; The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher; King Henry VIII by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher 6/29 at London's Globe Theatre: "From that full meridian of my glory/ I haste now to my setting: I shall fall/ Like a bright exhalation in the evening,/ And no man shall see me more" (III, ii); "Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!/ This is the state of man: today he puts forth/ The tender leaves of hopes; tomorrow blossoms,/ And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;/ The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;/ And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely/ His greatness is aripening, nips his root,/ And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,/ Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,/ This many summers in a sea of glory,/ But far beyond my depth: my highblown pride/ At length broke under me, and now has left me,/ Weary and old with service, to the mercy/ Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me" (III, ii); "Men's evil manners live in brass: their virtues/ We write in water" (IV, ii). The Globe Theatre burns down following the performance (see 1599; 1996).
Composer Don Carlo Gesualdo dies at his native Naples September 8 at age 53, survived by his widow, Leonora (née d'Este). Famous for his madrigal compositions, he murdered his first wife and her lover in 1590 and married Leonora 4 years later.
Spain's population falls as a consequence of wars and emigration to overseas colonies. The country becomes largely a wool-growing nation in a period of decadence and agricultural decline (see 1561).
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